Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate how children (aged 6 to 8 years) appropriate concepts relevant to making distinctions about music. In particular, the focus is on how they perceive and describe differences in time in pieces of music. The data were generated through interviews with children. The results show that there seems to be a developmental trajectory from a point where children are unable to discern differences in time in music, via a situation where they perceive such differences but account for them in an ad hoc manner, to a stage where they are able to discern and explain such differences in institutionally relevant concepts. In addition, the study documents how children – operating in the zone of proximal development – may be scaffolded in interaction with a more competent person to appropriate such institutionally relevant distinctions. It is argued that this developmental trajectory describes the development of a cultural skill where children increase their ability to structure music through bodily performance and in linguistic terms. Through this development they also become more skilled at communicating about significant features of music. Generally, in research analysing learning these processes of appropriation and scaffolding are presumed rather than made explicit.
Listening to music is not a passive registration of sound stimuli. Rather, it is an activity of meaning-making in which we pay attention to patterns and regularities, and where we try to discern melodies and sound gestalts. Listening thus relies on experience and particular forms of cultural learning through which we become acquainted with musical communication in its many varied forms. The ability to listen in an informed way is a fundamental constituent of musical skills. We rely on our skills for meaning-making when listening to music, when playing with others and when monitoring our own playing.
Interpreting how musical listening should be conceived is one of the areas where researchers from different fields and theoretical strands seem to converge in their analyses. The notion of musical listening as a matter of developing an increased ability to differentiate (and reintegrate) sound seems to be widely accepted. For example, Hargreaves, Hargreaves and North (2012) describe the competence of the expert listener in terms of his or her having access to a more “well-drawn map” of music than is the one available to a novice (cf. Bamberger, 2007; Tan & Kelly, 2004). By having access to such a map, expert listeners are able to anticipate and plan their listening and playing. While sharing conceptualizations of central elements of listening skills, researchers are less clear about how to conceptualize the development of this skill, that is, its developmental trajectory. It is reasonable to assume that in this field, as in most others, familiarity and expertise emerge in response to exposure to various musical experiences and to participation in communication with others about how music can be understood, classified and experienced. The aim of this article is to outline a conceptualization of such a developmental trajectory indicating an increasing ability to make musically-relevant distinctions. We have studied this development as it appears in institutionalized forms of music education. The analysis is based on a sociocultural theory of learning, and our excerpts come from interviews with children about early music education in primary schools.
Hearing vs. listening
There is informative literature on children’s auditory discernment already in infancy, through the research by Sandra Trehub (2001, 2003) and others (see Welch, 2006; Young, 2005, for reviews). However, it is important to realize that this body of research investigates hearing as an elementary psychological function that concerns the ability to make distinctions between sounds (cf. Bigand & Poulin-Charronnat, 2006). Our present object of research though is listening as “a higher mental function” as described by Vygotsky (1978). While the former type of research focuses on biological prerequisites for discernment, the latter issue concerns what Vygotskians would refer to as a “tool-dependent” activity, in which the listener’s access to distinctions and conceptual resources for engaging in an activity is central. The term/concept “cultural tool” is fundamental in sociocultural theory. It is a linguistic distinction or an artefact developed as a resource for reasoning and interacting with the world. In a sociocultural perspective, distinctions that refer to categorizing music may be seen as cultural tools. Integral to human knowing is that we codify experiences in cultural tools (material artefacts and discourses) that carry distinctions and conceptual resources for engaging in practical work (solving problems, reasoning, etc.). These cultural tools (including categories and distinctions) precede the thinking of the individual, and one important institution for introducing children to culturally-valued tools is school. In a sense, we borrow insight and knowledge from others when using such resources in social practices. When appropriating cultural tools, the child becomes a participant in ways of knowing and thinking about, for example, music. While discrimination as an elementary function can be observed in an infant through head movements or changes in gaze, discernment as a higher mental function requires some voluntary control on behalf of the perceiver when it comes to interpreting and communicating about what is heard. This implies that the person is able to notice a difference, and perhaps also to clarify what the difference is about and how it may be described. Expressed differently, an important analytical distinction is that between hearing and listening (Wallerstedt, 2010). Other analysts have made similar distinctions, for instance, between music listening and musical listening (Tan & Kelly, 2004; cf. Espeland, 2011). Lehmann, Sloboda and Woody (2007, p. 212) make such a distinction when characterizing the kind of auditory perception that can be shown in prenatal children, on the one hand, and “listening as a cognitive experience and skill” on the other. The former type of auditory perception refers to the discernment of sound differences (that is, the ability to recognize that two sounds are different), while the latter type of distinction refers to an acquired skill which, in our terms, is mediated by cultural tools such as “musical genre,” “form” or the one that we will study here, “metre (time).” 1 Such insights into music, and into distinctions relevant to music listening and music performance, may of course be acquired in different settings, but it must be assumed that instruction in school is central in this respect. It is here that all children are not only exposed to music on a daily basis, but where they also encounter discursive practices which enable them to describe and talk about music. Thus, in addition to living in a world of music, which most children do, formal instruction has the added ambition of providing children with some elementary tools for communicating about music – tools that can be used both when communicating about and when performing music.
Reviewing and summarizing research on “the nature of the musical experience and the ways it could be cultivated through education,” Bundra (2006, p. 5) draws two conclusions with respect to the centrality of listening for the development of musical skills. First in music education, “much of teaching and learning focused on the production of music” and here “listening often plays an ancillary role in the total music curriculum” (Bundra, 2006, p. 6). Second, for research, “there is a lack of consensus about the development of listening skills, making it difficult to determine what to teach children, when, and how” (Bundra, 2006, p. 6).
In recent years, several studies of the development of listening skills have pointed to the importance of considering this development as supported by instruction rather than as something that unfolds naturally in the listener. For example, in their study of listeners graphically representing short musical pieces, Tan and Kelly (2004, p. 205) argue that “[T]he instructor’s role is critical in encouraging the listener to view his or her representation in its entirety, and to show how it captures temporal patterns within the music.” Another scholar who has investigated the development of listening skills in institutional settings is Bamberger (1991). She conceptualizes listening as a form of problem-solving. Listening is seen as a conversation with the music, where different “hearings” are possible. Developing one’s ability to listen means being able to shift between different “hearings” rather than abandoning one for another. On the basis of a reanalysis of her previous study, Bamberger shows how she can prompt listeners to shift between “different hearings” within a single session (Bamberger, 2006). She argues that learning and development are inextricably intertwined, and that students therefore need help to reflect on their hearings in order to develop “multiple hearings.” Thus the teacher has an important role to play in making the listener aware of his or her way of listening and how the music could be heard in another way. Rephrased in terms of a sociocultural perspective, listening is an activity that is mediated by the cultural tools the listener has appropriated or is in the process of appropriating (Kozulin, 1998; Wertsch, 2007). A more differentiated set of cultural tools affords a wider range of modes of listening to music. Appropriation typically takes place through interaction with a more competent partner, who guides the learner into culturally more advanced forms of activity (Rogoff, 1990).
Learning about music: A sociocultural framework
In a sociocultural perspective, learning and development are conceptualized in terms of the appropriation of cultural tools and practices. One of the many important contributions to psychology made by Vygotsky was, as Daniels (2005, p. 6) points out, that he “drew attention to the way in which humans use tools, such as speech, which mediate their engagement with the world” (emphasis omitted). In recent sociocultural theorizing, the concept of appropriation (Rogoff, 1990, 1995; Wertsch, 1998) has been used to describe how people become familiar with, and become increasingly skilled at, using cultural tools through participation in social practices. This notion goes back to the Vygotskian idea of the development of so-called higher mental functioning, which takes place on two planes. First, the individual appropriates cultural tools through conversation and collaboration with others, and, later on, he/she is able to use such tools when reasoning. This is the famous law of sociogenetic development, where thinking is described as moving from the inter-mental plane (that is, between people) to the intra-mental plane (that is, the individual is able to apply concepts and make distinctions in his/her own thinking). Vygotsky argued that the “greatest change in children’s capacity to use language as a problem solving tool takes place [. . .] when socialized speech is turned inward.” This is the point where “language takes on an intrapersonal function in addition to its interpersonal use” (1978, p. 27). This very influential idea is Vygotsky’s solution to the problem of how cultural tools existing in social intercourse are integrated into human reasoning.
Taking a Vygotskian perspective, development is seen to take place in what is metaphorically construed as a “zone” referring to the distance between what the child is able to do on his or her own, on the one hand, and what he or she is able to with some assistance from a “more capable peer,” on the other. This distance between what the child masters on his or her own and what he/she needs adult support for mastering, Vygotsky (1987, 1998) refers to as the zone of proximal development (ZPD). This idea, among other things, implies that learning precedes development (of higher mental processes). This is a fundamentally different assumption from the one characterizing a maturation view of development. The concept of development within ZPD thus points both to the child’s current level of independent thinking, and the type of instructional interventions that he/she will be able to profit from. It is in this developmental space of ZPD that the kind of communicative support later referred to as scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) can take place. By providing some form of support (hints, questions, etc.), it is possible to see how children can advance their reasoning and problem-solving by appropriating specific cultural tools. In such analyses, a micro-genetic development can become visible. Over time, and through participating in communicative practices where certain cultural tools are used repeatedly, the child will become increasingly familiar with (that is, appropriate) these, which means that he or she eventually will be able to use these tools in what Vygotsky calls a voluntary manner without the support of another person.
In a sociocultural perspective, human knowledge and skills cannot be understood in isolation from the cultural tools the learner has appropriated or the practices that he or she is familiar with (Daniels, 2005). A consequence of this conceptualization of learning is that institutional practices and frames become pivotal to development. The growing child is socialized into a culture through institutional practices that provide opportunities for appropriating a diverse range of tools for making sense of the world. The theoretical perspective we take in our study is therefore not an age-based model of human development. What we describe is not specific to a particular age but to exposure to certain experiences. Schooling is one of the most important socializing contexts when it comes to making sure that children encounter institutional concepts and distinctions that represent collective experiences of a society, and a key task of the institution is to introduce learners to such culturally valued tools and practices.
The study
In this study, we will analyse how children’s appropriation of an institutionalized form of knowing unfolds in a concrete manner, and how the appropriation of this skill is scaffolded through interaction. The two, closely intertwined, questions asked in this study are:
How can the trajectory of a musical-listening skill be mapped?
How is it scaffolded in an instructional setting?
Method and methodology
The data for the present study are taken from a large data set documenting music education in classrooms during the first years of primary school (Wallerstedt, 2010). Three teachers and a researcher collaboratively planned lessons, thematizing similarities and differences between representations of music in 2/4 and 3/4 time. In the lessons, held by the teachers, the children were introduced to the concept of time. They listened to several pieces in 2/4 time and 3/4 time, and they used bodily representations such as clapping and moving to the music. They discussed with the children what similarities and differences in the music they could hear, and they tried to point out features of time such as pulse and stressed beats. After the lessons, one of the researchers (CW) conducted interviews with the children. In the present study, we will base our analysis on these interviews. We will focus on instances that give indications of the trajectory and scaffolding of a music-listening skill. The data set consist of 7 hours of recorded video that has been transcribed and analysed in full. The research procedures utilized were in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the Swedish Research Council.
The interviews were conducted 2 to 6 weeks after the children had had the lesson on time in music. Twenty-seven children, aged 6 to 8 years, participated. Fifteen of them were boys and 12 were girls. When having the lesson on time, the children were divided into three groups, thus three lessons were conducted but each child only participated in one of them. The children live in a rural area outside a small town where there are very few possibilities to practice a music interest. They hardly have any instruments in school and there are no music schools in the area. When having art classes, age-integrated groups like this are commonly used in this school. Each child was interviewed separately in a room adjacent to the regular classroom. The interviews lasted approximately 15 minutes. First, the child was asked to tell the interviewer about the lesson on time. Then, they were presented with the task of comparing different arrangements of a Swedish congratulations song played on a CD-player as well as other musical pieces from different genres, such as old and contemporary popular music and classical music in 2/4 and 3/4 time. During the interviews, the interviewer and the child also used a handheld drum to play different rhythms, which were then discussed in terms of time. In the present study, we analyse those sections of the interviews where the children compare music from the CD-player, music that has the same instrumentation, harmonics, melody and tempo, but which differs in time. One version follows the traditional arrangement of 2/4 time, while the other is arranged in 3/4 time.
The practice of interviewing children as a method of generating data and drawing conclusions about thinking has a long tradition in the study of human development. Piaget developed his méthode clinique with the interview as a central instrument, but this approach was already well established in child psychology. However, researchers inspired by sociocultural theory have been seriously reconsidering this approach (Aronsson & Hundeide, 2002; Pramling, 2006; Säljö, 2000; Wallerstedt, Pramling, & Pramling Samuelsson, 2011). One point they raise is that the interviews cannot be regarded as a way of “tapping” children of their understanding and knowledge. A more dialogical interpretation is necessary in which the child’s contributions to the conversation are analysed as responses to initiatives from an adult interlocutor. Thus, the interview has to be understood as a social practice. This implies that the analytical focus is then how sense-making unfolds between interviewer and child. This socio-culturally inspired notion of an interview also implies that the interview is not merely a means of accessing what the child already knows; rather, such interaction often serves as a learning opportunity furthering the knowing of the child (and, possibly, of the adult) (cf. Bamberger, 2006). Therefore, the research interview can never be of a purely summative nature, to use educational language; it will also, of necessity, be a formative practice in which the child’s interpretations and skills are shaped through the interaction that takes place.
In terms of the present study, this means that it is possible to study scaffolding practices (Wiggins, 2011) in the interview data, but such an analysis implies that one has to pay attention to the collaboration and co-construction of meaning between the interviewer and child. Meaning-making is a joint affair, and it is necessary to analyse the contributions of both parties in order to understand how the dialogue proceeds and what the nature of the scaffolding provided is. The notion of “scaffolding” was introduced in a seminal paper by Wood et al. (1976) to account for the changing division of labour between an adult and a child during problem-solving. Scaffolding is the process through which the child’s appropriation is supported by, for example, a teacher, or, as in the present case, the interviewer, who guides the child and successively facilitates a particular mode of understanding and participation.
It should be noted that the study of a developmental trajectory does not necessarily require longitudinal data. In fact, the present kind of study could hardly be carried out longitudinally since the point is to follow the process as it unfolds. Research on longitudinal data report the “products” (knowledge) at different points in time, while what we analyse is the process as it unfolds (on the distinction between developmental research in these terms, see Valsiner, 2005). The development we study is what is referred to as micro-genetic development in the sociocultural literature (e.g., Wertsch, 1998).
Taking this theoretical point of view, we are suggesting a developmental path in a particular, culturally central, skill, and we ground it in data. This is what Piaget, Vygotsky and many developmentalists have done. We have used interview data in a manner which is common in developmental psychology, and our claims are relative to the fact that we are interested in capturing a developmental trajectory visible in what children say.
Outlining a rationale for analysing conversational data, Wells suggests that what he refers to as a move (e.g., a question or an answer) is a constitutive element. “However,” he further argues, “it is the exchange – in which such reciprocally related moves combine – that constitutes the most appropriate unit for the analysis of spoken discourse” (Wells, 1999, p. 236, emphasis omitted). According to this conceptualization, “Every exchange consists of an initiating move and a response move (either of which may on occasion be nonverbal); under certain conditions, there may also be a third, follow-up, move” (Wells, 1999, p. 236, emphasis omitted). Hence, a sequence of a minimum three consecutive turns of utterances (or moves, in Wells’ terms) is analysed. Making such sequential analysis with an interest in the communicative architecture of scaffolding implies paying particular attention in such exchanges to the shifting division of labour in the ongoing conversation, that is focusing on who does what (e.g., introduces a term, uses it, and if, and if so, how, the interlocutor takes over this tool in the solving of a task or reasoning about an issue). Reporting analyses in close relation to empirical excerpts, as we will do, it is possible to see how the analytical distinctions made are grounded in data. Since excerpts of empirical data are reported in the study, it is possible to researchers with other analytical points of entry to arrive at alternative interpretations. This possibility is not available if merely reporting categories of responses.
The present study takes as a point of departure “the explicit recognition of the interdependence between theorizing and empirical observation” (Schoultz, Säljö & Wyndhamn, 2001, p. 105). As cogently argued by Bruner (1990) and others (e.g., Hanson, 1958/1981), there is a close and mutually-constitutive relationship between theoretical accounts and empirical observation. As Schoultz et al. (2001) write, “How would we ever learn anything about cognition and learning if we did not coordinate theoretical constructions and empirical observations?” (p. 105). If perceived in terms of the perspective of Vygotskian sociocultural psychology (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978, 1987; Wertsch, 1998), the empirical data analysed (and in part, through excerpts, reported in this study) constitute a description of the development of a certain kind of institutionally endorsed and valued listening skill and how learners learn to account for their listening in such settings. This notion of the development of this skill is informed by the theoretical position taken. Empirical data do not speak for themselves in any neutral, a-theoretical manner. Every scientific observation and interpretation of data is, as the philosopher of science Norwood Hanson put it, theory-laden (Hanson, 1958/1981). This general predicament of scientific study is particularly important to keep in mind when studying conceptual entities that are not easily observable. Rather, our knowledge of phenomena such as understanding, development and conceptions are always mediated (Wertsch, 2007) by what people do (their actions, verbal and other), that is, our access is indirect. In order to study such phenomena, we have to create conditions and have theoretical tools for inferring and conceptualizing what people do. One such common practice of producing data is interviewing people, as we have done in the present study.
Results
On the basis of the theoretical framework outlined above, we will present and illustrate a conceptualization of the development of a listening skill in the institutional setting of primary school. While appropriation has been, and continues to be, an important concept for reconceptualizing learning in research, it has largely remained a theoretical notion. In this article, we will first attempt to show elements of appropriation processes empirically as these appear in a concrete sense in a music-learning activity. In our analysis the concept will be closely coordinated with the empirical data. In the second section, we will report some observations on what may be seen as processes of scaffolding learners into appropriating certain conceptual distinctions – cultural tools – by means of which music may be experienced and talked about.
Observations on the trajectory of a listening skill
The first section of the results will deal with distinctions that children make in relation to their emergent experience of, and ability to identify, time as a tool for categorizing music. In Excerpt 1, turn 36, we see Thomas (7) acknowledging that he recognizes a song (a Swedish counterpart of “Happy Birthday”) played in duple time in the context of a children’s story. When the song is played in triple time, he argues that they sound almost the same 2 (turn 42). When prompted by the interviewer, Can you think of anything that you think is different? he persists in arguing that they were rather the same (turn 44).
Thus, Thomas reports that he recognizes the song but argues that the two versions of the song sound almost the same. In turn 43, the interviewer asks him if there are any differences, but Thomas persists in saying that they were rather the same.
In the next excerpt, Erik (7) comments after hearing the two versions of the same song. He acknowledges recognizing the song (turn 4), and when prompted in turn 5 by the interviewer (Do you hear any difference between these two?), he responds by saying that the one in duple time was the real one (turn 6). He continues by saying that it is the same song (when played in triple time) but does not clarify the difference between the two versions.
For Erik, the expression the real one seems to signal that this is the version he recognizes as the one he had heard, and that the other one is the same song but different from the real one. He thus makes what can be described as a local or ad hoc distinction between the two versions, but he does not refer to any general mediating concept that communicates the nature of the difference between the two versions.
Further into this interview, Erik and the interviewer are still talking about the two versions of “Happy Birthday” and that these, according to Erik, are different. Erik now accounts for the difference in terms of one being longer (turn 36) and one being shorter (turn 42). Here he claims in everyday terms that he has perceived some kind of difference between the pieces.
It is obvious that his choice of terms longer and shorter indicates that Erik perceives that the songs are different, but at the same time the distinction he uses is ad hoc and not coordinated with established musical discourse.
In the next excerpt, Anna (7) has said that time is something that you clap or stamp your feet to. Then the following conversation takes place:
Already in turn 16, Anna refers to a manner in which she can indicate the time with her hand. Later she expresses in words that there are differences between the versions, and that one of the versions is slower (turn 28) and the other faster (turn 26). She imagines she has a maracas in her hand to mark the time with. She also claps her hands, and she is well acquainted with this manner of signalling time.
When communicating with the interviewer about how time is shown, Anna talks about someone (something) like this, and simultaneously she illustrates this with her hand. This bodily movement (and its accompanying onomatopoetic expression) is a relevant way of communicating about music that functions in a local setting. She tries to recall the relevant terms and asks herself What’s it called again? and she tries to communicate to the interviewer what she knows and wants to express: something that sounds like this, choo, choo (turns 16 and 18). The interviewer suggests that it might be a maracas she is thinking of, which Anna confirms (turns 19–20). After listening to the music again, Anna suggests that one version is much slower (turn 28) than the other. The interviewer asks her What’s the difference? (turn 31) to which Anna first responds like this and indicates the rhythm (turn 34). Asked by the interviewer Can you tell me in words what the difference is? (turn 35), Anna hesitates somewhat by saying Er (turn 36), and then again suggests that the difference is that one is much faster than the other one (turn 36). The interviewer follows this up by asking Anna whether she hears any other difference between them then? (turn 37). Repeating the difference in terms of a bit faster and a bit slower (turn 38), the interviewer again introduces the issue of time and reminds Anna of what they did during the lessons and asks: What is the difference in time? (turn 43). However, Anna does not at this point account for the difference between the two versions in terms of time (turn 46). After some scaffolding (see the next section of the paper), the interviewer again raises the issue of 2/4 time and 3/4 time (turn 55). Anna now identifies the former as 2/4 time (turn 56). Asked How do you know that then, that it’s 2/4 time? (turn 57), she illustrates through clapping and moving her body in time and saying one, two . . . in a coordinated manner (turn 58).
Summary: The trajectory of a musical-listening skill
On the basis of this cross-sectional analysis, we suggest a taxonomy for the development of musical-listening skill of distinguishing time comprising four steps. As a first step, the child does not report noticing any difference between the pieces of music played in different time. As a second step, the child reports perceiving a difference between the pieces but cannot specify what the nature of the difference is. As a third step, the child notices a difference and is able to specify the nature in general or ad hoc terms. As a fourth step, the child notices a difference and is able to categorize it in domain-relevant terms using concepts that have to do with time. In the final excerpt, Anna needed some scaffolding in order to use the relevant terms, but it is obvious that she was quite aware of the nature of the difference between the songs, and she also tried to remember the relevant terms.
As clarified in the method section, the interviews were not conducted as tests in the conventional sense, and it lies outside the interest of this study to place each child on a particular step in a developmental path. When the interviewer tries to coordinate herself with the child’s perspective and engage in some scaffolding, most of the children “move” from one step to another. This is most clearly seen in what we have described as steps two and three. Several children come up with some clarification of what they notice as a difference, when they are encouraged by the interviewer to do so. How this kind of process emerges will be analysed in the following part of the study. As a short note, we can add that four children remain at the first step, not reporting any differences between two- and 3/4 time. Five of the children reach the fourth step during the interview.
Since our data are cross-sectional, we cannot strongly assert that this pattern constitutes a developmental trajectory, but the pattern observed fits well into a sociocultural conception of appropriation of cultural tools. The transformation implies an increasing ability to classify features of music in an institutionally-accepted manner. As the child’s listening skills develop further, increasingly finer discernments of musical qualities would be expected. This would, for example, include the ability to listen in a metric and a figurative way (Bamberger, 1991). In the second part of this study, we will analyse examples of instructional scaffolding aiming to develop the child’s listening skill.
Scaffolding children’s listening
Scaffolding (Wood et al., 1976) is an important element of child development and appropriation of institutional forms of mediation. In school, children are not left on their own to discover significant cultural tools, but their teachers introduce these resources and systematically assist the children to appropriate them. It is important to understand how teachers (and sometimes fellow students) do this in order to explain children’s growing mastery of “scientific concepts” (Vygotsky, 1987), or, rather, institutional concepts such as, in this case, metre. In the following section, we will illustrate exchanges where such scaffolding activities appear. To illustrate the nature of scaffolding when it comes to discerning metre and accounting for it, we will use data from an interview with Olga (8), who will serve as an exemplar in this section. The first interactive sequence starts with the interviewer talking about what was done during the previous lesson.
Olga points to the difference in time in everyday terms without using the institutional distinction. She explains that when you clapped your hands like this [. . .] if you have music that can only have two claps in (turn 20), and that ‘cos it’s better of course when it fits in, like, and so (turn 22). So the child spontaneously introduces clapping and time to refer to her fit or coordination with the music. At this point, the interviewer scaffolds the child by confirming what she has just said (Mm) and then asking her which, how can you check what fits in then? (turn 23). Olga replies that Well, if you follow the music (turn 24). The interviewer inquires further, Mm. And how, what follows, what do you do to the music then? (turn 25). She invites Olga to show (rather than explain) how this is done. However, Olga responds by saying that You might stamp your feet in time (turn 26), which is a clear indication of her understanding how one beats time.
At this point in the interview, the interviewer suggests that Olga tries to clap in time to the music and plays the music on the CD player. The conversation continues as follows:
The interviewer suggests that Olga tries to clap her hands to the music, which she does successfully (turns 35–37). Challenging the child further, the interviewer then suggests that Olga tries to clap to another piece of music (this time in duple time). Olga tries to do so, but struggles to coordinate her clapping with the time of the music. She notices and verbalizes this difficulty, I think it’s rather difficult to clap the time for this song (turn 42). So Olga notices that her clapping does not “fit” the music as it did in the first example (of duple time), It was easier with the other one (turn 44). The interviewer supports Olga in her comment and asks, How, did you think, was the way you clapped different then? (turn 45). Olga says that it was almost the same (turn 46), that is, similar but not quite the same. She perceives that there is a difference, but she does not at this point account for the nature of that difference. The interviewer then supports the child in remembering how the music sounded by playing the first piece (in 2/4 time) again. This prompts Olga to clarify that I went by the thing that sounded like this sh sh sh sh (turn 48). She mimics the sound of a drum, which works as a stepping stone, or a proto-tool, in the evolving coordination between the child, the interviewer and the music. Encouraging the child to continue, the interviewer then says, Try listening, is that sh sh there in this one? (turn 51), that is, the version in 3/4 time. In this way the interviewer takes hold of the child’s own proto-tool in the form of onomatopoeia and resets her question in these terms.
In the next excerpt, Olga is introduced to the relevant conceptual distinctions that are used in the context of music.
When the interviewer asks Olga what was the difference between these two? (turn 57), she replies like this and accompanies these words by clapping her hands (turns 58–62). This is a way of communicating the understanding of time that is commonly used by the children in this study. In the case of Olga, the interviewer here introduces the issue of time and the relevant terminology. She first asks Do you remember that these different beats… they were called different things, weren’t they? (turn 65), and then says, But we had 2/4 and 3/4 time, didn’t we? (turn 69) (thus referring to the different metres covered in the previous lesson). Here she introduces the tools of the domain and scaffolds Olga by referring to the relevant terms. She also reminds her (But we had) what was covered in the music class. Continuing along these lines, the interviewer rephrases the question to Which would you say the first one was in that case? (turn 71), that is, she asks Olga to describe the pieces in the relevant terms. When the music is played on the CD-player again, Olga starts clapping in time and the interviewer says 2/4 time (turn 73), and when they proceed to a piece in 3/4 time, the child claps and says three (turn 76). Olga also correctly identifies the time of the third piece listened to (a slow song in 3/4 time) (turn 80). Asked by the interviewer, Where did you get that from this time? (turn 83; cf. above, excerpt 6, turn 48), Olga says that I took it from the music (turn 84), more specifically, And then there was some sort of dong dong dong (turn 86). Throughout the sequence, the interviewer and the child talk themselves into a position that serves as a platform for continued scaffolding. Olga demonstrates her understanding of the task by bodily performing (clapping) to and mimicking the beat of the music played. As a next step in such a sequence of scaffolding, the interviewer encourages her to use the institutionally relevant terms. Moving along this developmental path from bodily enactment to linguistic accounts, Olga is more and more able to detach her understanding from the local context. Thus, she is moving from talking (and performing) in the context of music to talking about music by using some of the conventional institutional classifications.
Summary: The trajectory of scaffolding
In parallel with the trajectory of the listening skill that we presented in the previous section, we have used the case study of Olga to illustrate how expert intervention may serve as a scaffold for appropriating domain-relevant classifications/cultural tools. In short, these interventions progress from asking the child if two examples are similar or different to asking the child how he or she knows that one or the other is of a particular kind, that is, supporting the child in accounting for the similarities and differences between pieces in institutionally accepted terms. Even though Olga does not produce the relevant distinctions spontaneously, she is obviously in a zone of proximal development since she understands what is being asked of her and can produce relevant distinctions when triggered to talk about time of the music she has been listening to. An interesting feature of Olga’s participation in the discussion is that she continually claps her hands to indicate what she means. Clapping hands is an entirely reasonable and functional way of communicating in this context, and it represents an embodied form of understanding that is presumably very easy to generalize to other settings.
Discussion and conclusions
In this study, we have analysed the trajectory of a musical-listening skill as it appears in a cross-sectional comparison of pupils as well as how it is played out through scaffolding a child. The listening-skill studied may emerge in everyday practices, but for most children it is likely to emerge in the school setting. At the outset, we made a distinction between discriminating sound and discerning aspects or features of music, the former we referred to as “hearing” and the latter as “listening.” While hearing in this sense (not to be confused with Bamberger’s, 2006, use of the term “hearings”) is a biological predisposition for music perception, listening refers to sense-making and the ability to identify patterns and musical forms of expression. Listening is thus mediated through exposure to particular kinds of experiences that may result in the appropriation of cultural tools relevant to recognizing and understanding music. In functional terms, this means that the individual encounters and appropriates specific distinctions and categories that have evolved through history. Appropriating these kinds of cultural tools may be seen as sociocultural shaping of the musical mind. In addition, familiarity with established cultural tools makes it possible to talk and think about music and its constituent elements. This dual role of cultural tools as structuring resources – sensitizing a person to musically relevant distinctions co-determining his/her perception, on the one hand, and enabling him/her to think and talk about music on the other – implies that the child lives in a richer and more nuanced world where important practices are meaningful and can be analysed.
The focus of our study has been the perception of time in music, and we have described the trajectory of this listening skill as starting from a child that can make no distinction related to time when hearing music. As a second step, the child reports noticing a difference but he or she cannot explain what this difference is about. The third step implies being able to describe the phenomenon of time, although the description is given in everyday terms or in terms borrowed from other domains. As the final stage in this material about musical perception among young children, the child is able to discern and account for the particular phenomenon of time in institutionally-relevant terms. In line with the important distinction between what Vygotsky (1978) refers to as elementary and higher psychological processes, listening, as distinct from hearing, presumes that the individual has appropriated (or is in the midst of appropriating) specific cultural tools for mediating, in this case, sound. This theoretical notion also implies that for higher forms of psychological functioning, such as listening in our sense, there is no point in distinguishing between what someone is able to discern and what he/she is able to account for. The cultural tools mediating the listening experience for the learner are the same as those used in communicating this experience to others. The tools work both as resources for thinking and as a means of communicating with others, and the child is in a sense a member of a community that perceives music in a particular manner. Furthermore, while sound discrimination is a necessary condition also for more informed perceptive skills, it is not sufficient to explain listening as a higher mental functioning (in Vygotskian, 1978, terms, the development from one to the other kind of skill is a revolutionary process, not a continuous one). This important difference really is at the heart of our argument.
In addition to mapping the trajectory of this institutional listening skill, we illustrated the process of scaffolding, that is, how, in this case, the interviewer, works as a more “knowledgeable peer” (Vygotsky, 1978) supporting the child in the appropriation of this skill. The child and the interviewer talk themselves into a position where they have a platform for the teacher to scaffold the child’s further development. This teaching practice differs markedly from a traditional instructional format where the teacher tells the pupil what the expected conceptual distinctions are. Being able to scaffold a child presumes that a high degree of coordination is established between the interlocutors. Otherwise it would be difficult for this micro-genetic development (Wertsch, 1998) to take place. This sheds light on the significance of the teacher and teacher initiatives in music education, and on the interviewer in the kind of practice analysed here. When analysing the case of Olga, one could say that she is one of the most skilled children in this group, or, alternatively, that the interviewer conducted the most successful interview in this case. She succeeded in coordinating with the child’s perspective and simultaneously she managed to scaffold the discernment of critical features of time.
Another mode of describing our object of inquiry is that we have analysed listening as a multi-modal activity, involving bodily signs as well as linguistic ones. The children communicate by clapping their hands and stamping their feet as well as through conceptual distinctions. Thus, in this particular practice, competence can be demonstrated through different sign systems that operate in a complementary manner. But there is an interesting developmental trajectory here, in the sense that the ability to use conceptual distinction implies an added capacity to classify and reason about music. While the bodily indication that one is able to discern differences in time functions in the local setting and presence of another person, it lacks a wider reach. Being able to communicate what one has discerned verbally, detaches, as it were, one’s knowledge from the specific local setting and turns it into a tool that can be used in other situations and settings. Encouraging learners to appropriate more abstract conceptual knowledge of this kind is one of the goals of schooling (Mercer & Littleton, 2007; Pramling & Wallerstedt, 2009).
The tentative trajectory of development of an institutional form of listening skill that we have suggested in this study emerges in the context of our theoretical framework. Taking this Vygotskian perspective, the empirical data can be conceptualized in this manner. Taking an alternative theoretical point of view could potentially yield a different view of this development, including perhaps not even considering the findings as constituting indications of a developmental process. However, recognizing the co-constitutive nature of theoretical perspective and empirical data (Bruner, 1990; Hanson, 1958/1981; Schoultz et al., 2001), there is no theoretically-neutral position from which to compare and decide between alternative views. Every such attempt presumes one or another point of view. Hence, internal consistency, that is, close coordination between empirical data and explicit theoretical accounts is the distinguishing mark for valuing scientific knowledge claims. This does not mean that a debate between alternative perspectives on development is not fruitful, for example for clarifying what kind of issues can be explained from various theoretical perspectives and what such knowledge will imply for music education. But the complex relationships between various perspectives on a phenomenon such as development cannot be agreed upon by comparing accounts in terms of an allegedly theory-neutral empirical world (see Säljö, 2009, for an elaboration on these matters).
In a sociocultural perspective, what we have analysed in this study is a developmental trajectory taking place when knowledge is appropriated within a particular practice. Appropriating tools of this kind often requires rather extensive familiarization with a specific activity, and although such cultural tools may be acquired in everyday practice, it is mainly through participation in institutional forms of schooling that children come into contact with them. This is one way that schooling can give children the opportunity to share the collective insights of a society that may have evolved over hundreds of years. When the learner has appropriated these kinds of tool, he or she is able to structure the world, or in this particular case, music, in culturally-relevant forms. Familiarity with the tools allows the learner not only to use them as part of his or her own practices of listening to and playing music, but also for communicating with others about musical practices and experiences.
Footnotes
Funding
The work reported here has been carried out within the Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS) funded by the Swedish Research Council.